I don't know if they operate in your area, but we use Tick Ranger, which is a service by Naturalawn. We are not big fans of putting chemicals on the lawn, but we decided to make an exception for the tick service because we were finding ticks all over our cat (even though we treat HIM for ticks). We also had them in our bathroom (climbing, I assume, off of our clothes and into our hamper!) We are on the edge of a wooded area and close to a wetlands, with TONS of deer and mice and all the other vectors for deer ticks and Lyme around. I have to say that as soon as they started treating, the tick population in the yard dropped noticeably. I haven't seen any on the cat or the dog (golden retriever) in the past two years. I don't have small children any more, so I would definitely ask about safety of the product for little people. If there isn't a Tick Ranger near you (they only seem to be in a couple of NJ counties), try contacting your health district or local extension service for recommendations about what you can do. Depending on how close you are to wetlands, there may be some restrictions as to what you are allowed to apply to your yard.

Good luck! I meet people every day here in my CT town (our in the countryside) who have contracted Lyme -- some on multiple occasions. It certainly doesn't sound like fun and you will want to get the ticks under control if you can.

Here is a link that might be useful: TIck Ranger

Engk, please see the thread I bumped on this forum about Lyme disease and gardeners.

I visited the Wisdom House in CT last year. They have a tick control demonstration site. As you walk around they have little signs telling you what to do and how to do it. This makes your yard on the tick controlled side. You still need to wear protective clothing and take precautions, especially outside of the area.

I liked the demonstration site. It was very nice looking. If you are not close to this, you can always click on the link and read the signs. Click the link by each sign to see what steps you can take.

I recall they had a tall, chain link fence. This keeps the deer out of the yard. They also had several feet of woodchips from the fence out into the yard. This apparently acts as a tick barrier. Right by the fence, they had deer resistant perrennials and shrubs that grow over the fence. Otherwise, I would not care for that type of fence in the yard.

It has been a year since I went there, but that is my memory of it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tick Control Demonstration Site

I am in the same boat, engk: our property is a woodland/wetland edge, my husband and I love the outdoors and gardening, and I am seven months pregnant.

I canÂt currently use any tick spray on myself, because they all seem to contain deet, and my doctor said "no deet while pregnant". So, we have taken the following precautions:

If time is spent in the lawn and vegi garden, long pants are tucked into socks, and the pants get inspected before coming back into the house. If shorts are worn, legs are inspected. If shorts are worn but the wearer has been squatting in the grass  full body check. (My poor hubby had a tick in a rather sensitive area last week after a combination of shorts and squatting. Yuck.) The clothes go straight into the designated "gardening hamper" and can be reworn only for more gardening. And a shower before bed is a good idea.

For any venture into the woods or swamp, even briefly  full body check. Cloths go straight into the wash. We go straight into the shower.

So far this has prevented ticks from being loose inside the house, as far as we know. This makes me feel much safer in and around my home. Since we have started doing this, we have found ticks on ourselves, but we can say precisely when and where we picked up the tick. And the ticks have so far not had time to get engorged, even if they do latch on. (A tick has to bee attached for 24 hours before there is any serious threat of transmitting LymeÂs, to my knowledge.)

In addition, we just purchased a ton of damminix tick tubes. I also read somewhere about clothing infused with some sort of anti-tick chemical that isnÂt deet, but I havenÂt tracked that product down yet.

This makes our garden time a lot less spontaneous, sadly. But after having half a dozen deer ticks on each of us so far, it seems prudent. I realize it is only going to get harder once we have a toddler running around. But itÂs not like time in the woods here was free and happy before the ticks, either, what with all the poison ivy about.

Here is a link that might be useful: damminex tick tubes

Stolon -- I use sprays with the active ingredient 'Permethrin' found in Repel Permanone. You spray this on clothing and it survives several washings. I treat socks and several pairs of pants, shirts that I wear only when gardening. You can buy this at EMS, discount stores, etc. Look in the camping section. I remove and segregate the clothes in a sealed plastic bag in the basement. When enough of these clothes I wash them separate from the rest of the clothes (in hot). You must spray the clothes again after 3 or 4 washings to get preventative effect.

However rereading your post I don't think this is recommended for pregnant women.

I too feel bad that the days of a casual walk around the garden, weeding in the garden after returning from work, doing some small task at dusk is nearly impossible.

Here is a link that might be useful: Permanone Link

One area of our town has been using Damminix tubes for several years and they work really well. If you're not familiar with them, they contain treated "bedding" that mice and other critters carry into their nests. That neighborhood is on a peninsula, and that's probably one reason the treatment was so successful - not many animals passing through other than the deer.

I looked at the Tick Ranger web site but they don't mention what chemical they use. They did have a good (if short!) section on management:
* Learn the "safe" and "risk" zones on your property.
* Keep your lawn mowed at the appropriate height. This will reduce the ability of the tick to wait for a host.
* Good sanitation. Remove all leaf debris and keep plant beds clean and dry.
* Keep shrubs and bushes pruned and away from pathways.
* Keep ground covers to a minimum. Ticks like to hide in these.
* Locate play areas in sunlight.
* Create a natural barrier around your property using gravel or wood chips.
* Keep your pets from wooded areas or wandering into wooded areas.
* Consider deer fencing.

Good luck with this - I haven't had Lyme disease but know lots of people who've had it. It's no fun at all.

Wow! Those recommendations are quite stringent. "Remove all leaf debris" Hmmm, guess my garden mulch and lasagne beds are out... I even pick up extra leaves at the municipal composting site each weekend! "Keep ground covers to a minimum" Well better get working on removing the 3,000 SF of Vinca left in the yard. "Keep pets from wooded areas" - okay, I'll tell the cat not to go into the long grass and woods.

Seriously, I love to be out in the woods, fields, etc., I also crawl around in bushes cutting Oriental Bittersweet and removing invasives. That is just not going to stop because of ticks. So I usually wear long pants and sleeves, use Cutters or Off lightly sprayed on clothing and wiped on face and neck. When I do this I have not found any ticks on me.

Nevertheless, I've found at least a half-dozen Deer ticks and a couple Wood ticks latched onto my body this Spring so far. I've become sensitized to "feeling" them when they latch on, and remove them, sanitize the bite, and apply Bactroban, a prescription topical anti-biotic for several days. SOmetimes I ask my son to do a "tick check" and inspect my back for me.

The key is early detection of a tick on your body - if removed within 48 hours of latching on, it is unlikely that the Lyme bacteria has been transmitted to the blood. It is also possible to take 2 large doses of Doxycycline prophylatically within 72 hours of the bite, this supposedly prevents Lymes in alsmot all cases.

Sedum, thanks for the info! I'll have to do some research on Permethrin.

Terrene, I think there are two different schools of though on ticks - one school wants to keep them out of the yard entirely, the other wants to prevent lyme's disease (by remiving attached ticks as quickly as possible, if by no other means). They're both good ideas; it's just that neither is going to work for all situations. Playgrounds should be kept as close to the former as possible, but there's no way to maintain and enjoy a wild patch of forest's edge without a willingness to pick off the occasional tick.

"Learn the "safe" and "risk" zones on your property." This is a great piece of advice! As is keeping the grass mowed. Many of the things on that list aren't practical for my property, but by following a few of the guidelines I think we have already reduced our exposure.

Stolon, that could probably be said for a lot of insects, like bees, spiders, etc. that people are averse to for whatever reason. Some people are cool with having them around and others aren't. I don't like ticks and mosquitos any more than any one else, and realize they carry disease, but they are impossible to avoid entirely when you have gardens to encourage wildlife and wild areas in your yard.

The recommendations for managing ticks are excellent especially for playground, around the house, backyard patios and outdoor living areas, playsets, etc. and without chemicals! It makes no sense to me to apply chemicals to an area where kids and pets are likely to concentrate.

Guys, the stuff Tick Ranger uses is cedar oil--completely harmless and seems to have been effective in the two years I have been using their services. You want to see how effective cedar oil is, go to YouTube and watch the videos of people putting cedar oil on ticks. I got Lyme disease two summers in a row and believe me you don't want to have this ailment. Tick Ranger happened to be the first service I found on the net and I told the guy I didn't care if they had to put Napalm on my yard I wanted those ticks out of there, but then he told me about the cedar oil. There are no constraints having kids or pets out on the lawn immediately after application, a good thing. Do the research.

Great info. One of my kids got Lyme disease two summers ago, and we apparently caught it early. Also, CDC had recently reversed their attitude about Lyme, which meant all my doctors were amazingly aggressive regarding treatment. What a welcome surprise after the horror stories I'd heard from the friends! My major combat methods now are to get rid of as much leafy areas under the trees as I can and checking yard for Japanese Barberry. Will look into Tick Ranger.

Well, that's not good. (sigh)